There are alot of abnormailities with some SS trucks. Some early 90 trucks had dumbo mirrors and some canadian SS's got the 80 MPH speedo. Vin is the easiest and best way to check. The 8th digit will be an "N" if it's a reall SS.
I know this was discussed either here or the 454SS site, but my truck is an early truck and it never had dumbo mirrors (others that don't know I bought my truck in 1991 with 4300 miles on it). When I first bought my truck, I hung out with other local 454SS owners (5 trucks within a 50 mile radius), and got to know 2 guys really well (one in fact is now a brother in law). I did a lot of work on each of these trucks, and even did an LS1 swap into one of them about 10 years ago. Not one of those trucks had dumbo mirrors and they were all 1990 trucks. I also worked at a shop that did cellular phone/two way radio installs and we did several 454SS trucks for a paving company (all model years 1990-1993), and every one of them had the sport mirrors, bucket seats, blah, blah, blah.
I've never seen a 'real' 454SS with dumbo mirrors that someone didn't add themselves. Until I see actual proof that they came otherwise (not beliefs of people on the internet), I will disagree that these trucks came more than one way. The Sport trucks came with dumbo mirrors and not the sport mirrors from the factory. The Sport trucks share many things with the 454SS, but not everything. IIRC all 454SS trucks were built in the same factory (FT Wayne IN) and that kinda rules out any variances from plant to plant. All 1990 & 1991 US bound trucks were identical from the factory with very few exceptions. I can accept that export trucks were different in some ways, due to the laws in those countries.
Obviously as I stated earlier those are the things to look for when trying to decipher if a 454SS is real or not. The VIN is the proper way, but if the VIN is correct and the truck has a bench seat, wrong instrument cluster and a 10 bolt, I would walk away from it. You can bet there are some 'real' 454SS trucks that did not start life as a 454SS. It's just like the muscle car world. There are many GTOs out there that started life as a LeMans...Yes in 1964 a GTO started out as an option on a LeMans, but in 1966 the GTO became it's own model, with its own VIN sequence until 1971. Many people have swapped VINs from car to car over the years. It's a little tougher to do with a late model, but if someone doesn't know what they are looking for in the first place, they could be deceived into thinking one was real.
Not trying to pick an efight in any way. I have been in touch with alot of these trucks over the last 21 years I have owned mine. When these trucks are bought as used vehicles many years after they were built, it is tough to know what is correct and what is not.
